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Congratulations to the winners of the 2012 Poetry Contest. This year's theme was animals,inspiring over 200 poems. Winners and honorable meniton recipients are invited to Poetry Night on Tuesday, April 25 to read their poems and receive prizes and certificates. Thank you to our judges: Peggy Kane, President, Friends of the Library, Kate Burnham, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, and Barbara Raab, Children's Librarian.

This account of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is respectful and sarcastic, reverent and flippant. Sarah Vowell has a deep interest not just in the order of events, but in the hows and whys behind them; she examines Governor John Winthrop’s journals in great detail, and her efforts to understand his and the other Puritans’ motivations are unflagging. However, she’s not above poking fun at some of their more ridiculous beliefs and petty squabbles. For those whose knowledge of this early era of U.S. history consists of hazy memories of grade-school Thanksgiving plays, The Wordy Shipmates is a great refresher course, and Vowell is an entertaining teacher who strives to connect past to present. The audiobook is also excellent, with Vowell narrating and an additional cast for voices such as John Winthrop and Anne Hutchinson.

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. As part of the celebraton, we would like you tell us why the library is important to you. Just click on the link in the banner on our home page. Whether you are a job seeker looking for resources to land a new job, a parent looking for free activities for children or a student searchin for information for a homework assignment, we want you to know you are important to use and we are here for you.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World is a real-life detective story where the detective is hunting down not a criminal but the cause of a disease. The “detectives” in this page-turner are Reverend Henry Whitehead and Dr. John Snow, who together investigate the outbreak of cholera in London in 1854. The way that they solve the case using mapping techniques is fascinating; Snow proved that the spread of the disease was due to contaminated drinking water, not a "miasma" in the air.

A retelling of Jane Eyre set in Scotland in the 1950s and ‘60s, The Flight of Gemma Hardy is at once familiar and fresh. At first the story keeps so close to the original it seems that only the names have been changed, but at the character grows, so does the story; by the time the author really begins to depart from Charlotte Bronte’s original, the reader - whether a devotee of Jane Eyre or not - is on board. Gemma is a bit more outspoken and willing to stand up for herself than Jane is, though like Jane, she's often in the unenviable position of being the person with the least power no matter where she goes - her uncle's house, her boarding school, her job as an au pair in the far-flung Orkney Islands of Scotland. Margot Livesey has done a wonderful job of honoring Jane Eyre while also creating something lively and new.

There will be lots of great bargains during the month of April when the Friends of the Library Book Store Next Door celebrates its 5th anniversary. Starting April 4, and continuing until the end of the month, you can buy a non-fiction book and get one free. Starting April 11, all non-fiction and children’s books will be buy one and get one free. Starting April 25, everything in the Book Store Next Door is on sale-buy one, get one free! Everyone who stops by the store on Saturday, April 28 will get a special treat while they last. The Book Store Next Door is open on Wednesdays from 10 am to 4 pm and on Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm.

Annette Mattaliano was the winner of the Friends of the Library Girl Scout Cookie Gift Basket. This gift basket raised over $900 which will help fund many of the events offered by the Wilmington Memorial Library. Thanks to everyone who bought a raffle ticket.

From the author of A Northern Light and The Tea Rose comes another sweeping work of historical fiction. Andi, a senior at a prestigious Brooklyn high school, is suffering in the aftermath of her brother’s death, her mother’s breakdown, and her father’s absence; music is the only thing that matters to her. When her father checks her mother into an institution and drags Andi to Paris with him over winter break, she is furious – but then she discovers the journal of Alexandrine, who lived during the French Revolution, and becomes caught up in her story. This entangling of past and present is common enough in historical novels, but Donnelly creates a wholly original, unpredictable work – a page-turner for teens and adults alike.

At a boarding school in 1982, four boys go down to the river one day. Three boys come back: the fourth, Thomas Brougton, is dead. Of the remaining three boys, one admits to drinking and is expelled, but the other two – the narrator, Alex, and his friend Glenn – lie, and are allowed to remain. Unlike the narrator of John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, Alex has in no way caused Thomas’ death, but he feels responsible nevertheless. Glenn, who may in fact be more culpable than Alex allows himself to consider, is afraid that their English teacher, Miss Dovecott (on whom Alex has a crush, and who encourages his writing), saw more that day at the river than she has admitted, and wants to oust her from the school. Alex is drawn into Glenn’s plan reluctantly, all the while trying to work through his own grief and guilt through his writing, both in his journal and in poems.